After Diezani, Others’ Acquittal, What Next?

David Onyeri

Following the discharge and acquittal of the former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke by a UK court after she and other former key players and other stakeholders in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry had suffered reputational damage, the Nigerian government owes them restitution and an additional obligation of ensuring that their successors also clear themselves of allegations surrounding the N210 trillion alleged to be missing in the NNPC Limited.

Last month, the London’s Southwark Crown Court cleared Diezani, who was Nigeria’s petroleum minister between 2010 and 2015 and the first female president of the oil exporters group, Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), of five counts of accepting bribes from wealthy oil executives in the form of luxury home stays and lavish spending sprees in the UK.

Also cleared by the court were her older brother, Doye Agama, 69, an archbishop at a Pentecostal church in Manchester, who was acquitted of conspiracy to commit bribery; and oil industry executive, Olatimbo Ayinde, 54, who was cleared of allegations of bribery of a foreign public official.

The verdict was a blow for the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), which investigated one of Africa’s most prominent political figures for 13 years.

From the start of the trial in January, her defence lawyers questioned the fairness of the prosecution’s case, alleging that vital documents showing her innocence had gone missing in Nigeria, revealing an official conspiracy by agents of the Nigerian government to ensure she was jailed unjustly.

After leaving office in 2015, Diezani, alongside her family members and associates became the worst victims of former President Muhammadu Buhari’s vindictive anti-corruption campaign.

For several years, Diezani, her associates, family members and former oil and gas industry stakeholders, including bankers, were maligned, tried in the media and declared guilty of humongous corruption without any iota of evidence except mere speculations.

Some of the other victims of the vicious corruption allegations include her son, Ugonna Alison-Madueke; her cousin and private lawyer, Donald Chidi Amamgbo; some of Nigeria’s best-known indigenous oil businessmen – Kolawole Aluko and Olajide Omokore.

Others include several senior banking executives, including former Fidelity Bank Managing Director, Nnamdi Okonkwo; a former First Bank Executive Director, and current Governor of Zamfara State, Dauda Lawal, as well as a former Sterling Bank Executive Director, Lanre Adesanya,

These vicious campaigns also attempted unsuccessfully to taint the hard-earned reputation of other distinguished oil and gas industry professionals across finance, legal, engineering, exploration, procurement and commercial operations, including a former Managing Director (GMD) of the NNPC, Andrew Yakubu, who was also discharged and acquitted by the courts; and another distinguished former GMD, Austen Oniwon.

Others include a former Deputy Group Managing Director of NNPC, Bernard Otti; a former Executive Secretary of the defunct PPPRA, who introduced landmark reforms that cleaned up the subsidy frauds, Reginald Stanley; and a former Director of the defunct DPR, Babs Omotowa, among other distinguished professionals.

Agents of the administration of the late President Buhari and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) effectively used media trials to slander the former minister and some of these oil and gas industry professionals, as well as reputable business and banking executives.

Many Nigerians believe that Buhari’s inept leadership used allegations of corruption against key actors in the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan and some private sector players to distract the attention of Nigerians from its obvious cluelessness and mismanagement of the Nigerian economy.

 During her tenure, the former minister and her team initiated and implemented some of the most successful reforms in the history of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.

To their credit, some of these maligned official’s superintended over the signing of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Act (NOGICD) Act by former President Jonathan in April, 2010, which has tremendously increased the participation of indigenous facilities and local manpower in the oil and gas industry.

They also played key roles in the initial drafting of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), signed into law as the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), which replaced all the obsolete legislations in the Nigerian oil and gas sector.

Diezani and her team also facilitated major landmark deals in the sector, including the first divestment of major onshore oil-producing assets by the International Oil Companies (IOCs), with the sale of Oil Mining Leases (OMLs) 4, 38 and 41 by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) to Seplat Petroleum Development Company (now Seplat Energy) in 2010.

This successful deal between SPDC (now renamed Renaissance Africa Energy Company Limited) and Seplat, opened the floodgates for the divestments of onshore assets to indigenous companies, which have made the Nigerian independents major players in the upstream sector of the industry, which was the exclusive preserve of the IOCs.

Under these former officials, Nigeria also launched major oil and gas projects, including Usan and Egina deep water projects in 2010 and 2013 respectively, which collectively added about 400,000 barrels to Nigeria’s daily crude oil output.

It is on record that after Total launched Egina in June 2013, it took Diezani’s successors 13 years to create enabling environment for a similar deepwater project – Bonga Southwest Project/Aparo – to be launched by Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo) in 2026.

President Bola Tinubu, in March 2026, granted presidential approval that resolved the long-standing fiscal and commercial bottlenecks that stalled gigantic deepwater projects in Nigeria since Usan and Egina were launched in 2010 and 2013, paving the way for the Bonga South West/Aparo deepwater project.

But Bonga Southwest, which is designed for a peak production capacity of 150,000 barrels per day, is still below Egina’s 200,000bpd production capacity.

In terms of the Nigerian Content Development, Egina scored firsts on many fronts, setting a new record in local content development as a large scope of the jobs involved in the development of the oilfield was executed in Nigeria by Nigerian professionals, generating employment opportunities, curbing flight and increasing the country’s GDP.

For Bonga Southwest, oil and industry players believe that the presidential waiver designed to encourage the IOCs to launch the project, empowers them to export most of the jobs abroad.

There is no doubt that the glorious days of the Nigerian oil and gas industry ended after Diezani’s tenure. 

Despite their laudable achievements, the former minister and her allies were rewarded with allegations of corruption, which tainted their reputation globally.

With their discharge and acquittal by the UK court, the Nigerian government owes them restitution and an additional obligation of ensuring that their successors also clear themselves of allegations surrounding the N210 trillion alleged to be missing in the NNPC Limited.

The Senate’s investigation into alleged ₦210 trillion discrepancies in the audited financial statements of the NNPC Limited has once again placed Nigeria’s national oil company under intense scrutiny, reviving familiar questions about transparency, governance and institutional accountability.

The Senate Public Accounts Committee had recently issued a one-week ultimatum to the external auditors of the NNPC Ltd. to provide a comprehensive breakdown of more than N210 trillion recorded as receivables and payables in the company’s audited financial statements, insisting that the figures remained unexplained and cannot be left unreconciled

Although NNPC Ltd has disputed interpretations that the figures represent missing funds, the controversy has reinforced a perception that the institution struggles to escape allegations of financial opacity.

The latest episode echoes earlier chapters in NNPC’s history, particularly the Diezani’s era, when corruption allegations dominated public discourse.

Lately, the immediate past GMD of NNPC, Mele Kyari and the current Group Chief Executive of the state-owned national oil company, Bayo Ojulari—have all faced serious corruption allegations, having inherited the challenge of leading an institution whose public image has often been shaped as much by controversy as by its commercial mandate.

The Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) was designed to transform the old NNPC into NNPC Ltd., promising a commercially driven, transparent and accountable enterprise.

But these recent developments showed that even the rebranding has not escaped controversy, with persistent debates over governance, audited accounts, board oversight and financial disclosures continuing to fuel public scepticism.

The recurring cycle raises difficult questions that extend beyond any single investigation or individual. Is NNPC fundamentally an accountable institution? Can structural reforms and stronger oversight ever restore confidence in its brand? And can the reputations of the many professionals who have served within its ranks ever be judged independently of an institution that, for decades, has remained synonymous with Nigeria’s biggest oil-sector controversies—even where no personal wrongdoing has been established against them?

But one thing remains certain: Those who rode to power on the back of vicious anti-corruption campaigns designed to malign others must account for this N210 Trillion missing funds. Nigerians must resist the ongoing attempts to bury the matter under the carpet.

•David Onyeri, a communications consultant writes from Abuja